PRS-350 To buy or not to buy (at $120 on Best Buy)?

[ilovejedd]

So this is on sale on Best Buy at what I think is a very reasonable price. To the owners, how do you like it? Any quirks, etc? Mainly, I plan on using this for Adobe-DRM ePub I've bought from BooksOnBoard and Fictionwise, and ebooks borrowed from the library.

Thanks!

P.S.
I forgot to ask, does this have a slot for perhaps a memory card or something? I've actually got a ton of Memory Stick Duo's for my PSP and SD cards for the camera that I can use. The 2GB onboard memory is looking decidedly small given how picky I can be at times when looking for reading material. That's one of the things I appreciate about my iPhone. I have access to my full Calibre library anytime so in case there's nothing on my phone that I want to read at the moment, I can always check my Calibre library. Thanks again.

[FizzyWater]

The smaller 300-series readers from Sony do not have memory card slots.

[ilovejedd]

Just confirming, I can load non-DRM'd ePubs to the PRS-350 right? Because I was looking at the specifications for both PRS-350 and PRS-650 and for some reason, the latter specifically mentions support for non-DRM'd formats while the former doesn't.

PRS-350

Media Formats Supported

• DRM Text : ePub (Adobe DRM protected), PDF (Adobe DRM protected), BBeB Book (PRS DRM protected), Text, RTF
• Image : JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP

PRS-650

Media Formats Supported

• DRM Text : ePub (Adobe DRM protected), PDF (Adobe DRM protected), BBeB Book (PRS DRM protected), Text, RTF
• Image : JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP
• Unsecured Audio : Unsecured Adudio: MP3 (Non encrypted), AAC (Non encrypted)
• Unsecured Text : ePub, BBeB Book, PDF, TXT, RTF, Micrsoft® Word, (Conversion to the Reader requires Word installed on your PC)

[shibamistress]

I'll be interested in hearing what people think about these....I saw them at Best Buy too, and they are a great price, and a really nice, small size too.

[Coops]

non-DRM'd is just fine - I remove all DRM from my epubs anyway.

My 350 has replaced my 505 - it's great.

No slot for extra storage card, not that i'd ever need it.

I don't miss the larger 505 screen, and the newer e-ink is an excellent improvement.

Coops

[ilovejedd]

Just placed my order. In the short time since I started this thread, it got sold out in the store closest to me (just on the way home from work). I now have to go slightly farther to pick up my reader.

Hmm, just rechecked my fanfiction collection and surprisingly, it's just using ~125MB even with ~2,300 titles (text only ePub). My current Calibre library is bigger at 4GB but that's probably because those have covers and multiple formats (original un-DRM'd LIT/MOBI/AZW + converted ePub) so it's starting to look like 2GB is going to be plenty to keep me occupied.

I'm looking forward to getting my first eInk reader.

[Coops]

It's excellent, but worth a bit of effort to get much better fonts installed or embedded in your epubs.... the default Sony font is sadly rather rubbish.

Search around in here - I've gone down the Boroda hack route with Fontin as my font of choice. Takes a bit of effort and learning etc but once done makes the Sony close to perfect.

Coops

[Terisa de morgan]

It's a very nice device. You don't need an additional card unless you want to carry around all your library. You can read both DRM and non-DRM ePub and PDF books. And about font, it depends on you. I'm using the default font and I don't feel bad about it. I have a friend of mine who would bump if she could find that deal.

[Asawi]

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the 350! I thought 5" would be too small for my eyes, but the screen contrast and the crisp text makes it extremely readable. I can even use the S (small) font size surprisingly often (something I could never do on my 6" PRS 600), and never have to go larger than M. My daughter always use the S (or even occasionally XS) font size.
I don't have a problem with the Sony font, but I do wish there were smaller steps between font sizes, but that's just a minor gripe.
You can read DRM or non-DRM ePubs. It does a decent job with PDF. Not great, but better than many.
$120 is a great price! Widh I could find the pink one for that, for a friend who might steal mine otherwise.

[tmaldo]

I bought 3 of them. One for me, one for hubby and one for a birthday present. You can fit a little over 1000 epub books on it with a little free space left for note taking and pictures etc. Before I gave the one as a birthday gift to someone who is not computer savvy, I loaded all their favorite type of books on there and they're over the moon with the gift. They say that it will take them over 2 years to read all the books. The size is really handy to put in a purse, even with a case. I bought silicon skins for all of them and screen protectors. I also got 3 zippered cases to go with the readers (an outlet item from Best Buy) in case they're tossed into a bag. Hubby puts his into his cargo pants pocket to read when he sitting in waiting rooms etc.
tmaldo

[cmdahler]

My personal preference went the other direction. I bought one of these and tried it for a couple of days and returned it. The screen is far too small for my taste. It's actually getting somewhat close to the size of the iPhone's screen, so I felt like I might as well just read books on the phone rather than blow $120 on the 350. It made me feel like I was reading a novel printed on a little devotional-sized book from church. I couldn't imagine doing heavy-duty reading with it, but I will admit it would be the perfect little thing for whipping out on the subway on the way home from work.

For people who don't mind small screens and for whom eInk is an absolute requirement, it would probably be a good fit. Keep in mind when compared to the 650, though, that you are getting what you pay for: plastic body as opposed to the 650's metal construction, and when I say plastic, I mean a rather cheap mold and construction - definitely not anywhere near the quality of the 650 - the 350 I tried had noticeable molding artifact ridges on the spine and so forth, and the silver paint really looked like plastic painted with silver paint, very cheap looking to me. But of course, it's only $120, so that may be an acceptable tradeoff to you. The actual build did feel solid - much better than, say, the Kindle DX or the Sony 950 that I tried, both of which felt like toys (gripping them with even a mild pinch produced a noticeable "give" to the plastic body, not reassuring at all for long-term durability).

One positive to the 350: it's the only eInk reader I've ever run across that has a dots-per-inch density that actually starts to approach print quality: I think it's around 250 dpi or so, so the text is noticeably better rendered than on other devices, which have densities around the upper 100s range.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by cmdahler

and when I say plastic, I mean a rather cheap mold and construction - definitely not anywhere near the quality of the 650 - the 350 I tried had noticeable molding artifact ridges on the spine and so forth, and the silver paint really looked like plastic painted with silver paint, very cheap looking to me.

All true-- except for the fact that it isn't true. The back panel of the 350 is plastic, but the front panel (which includes the spine with the "molding artifact ridges") is aluminum.

Thanks for playing, though.

[Aurora13]

I have the silver Sony prs-350 it doesn't look cheap to me at all. It is sturdy in the hand and quite light as well. I really thought 'oh my goodness it is so small!" when I first got it, but it is really easy to hold with one hand (and a cup of coffee in the other the the font is clear and crisp. I really love it! I think that 2G of internal memory is really all I need and this way I'm not prone to lose an external source of memory!

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by cmdahler

My personal preference went the other direction. I bought one of these and tried it for a couple of days and returned it. The screen is far too small for my taste. It's actually getting somewhat close to the size of the iPhone's screen, so I felt like I might as well just read books on the phone rather than blow $120 on the 350. It made me feel like I was reading a novel printed on a little devotional-sized book from church. I couldn't imagine doing heavy-duty reading with it, but I will admit it would be the perfect little thing for whipping out on the subway on the way home from work.

For people who don't mind small screens and for whom eInk is an absolute requirement, it would probably be a good fit. Keep in mind when compared to the 650, though, that you are getting what you pay for: plastic body as opposed to the 650's metal construction, and when I say plastic, I mean a rather cheap mold and construction - definitely not anywhere near the quality of the 650 - the 350 I tried had noticeable molding artifact ridges on the spine and so forth, and the silver paint really looked like plastic painted with silver paint, very cheap looking to me. But of course, it's only $120, so that may be an acceptable tradeoff to you. The actual build did feel solid - much better than, say, the Kindle DX or the Sony 950 that I tried, both of which felt like toys (gripping them with even a mild pinch produced a noticeable "give" to the plastic body, not reassuring at all for long-term durability).

One positive to the 350: it's the only eInk reader I've ever run across that has a dots-per-inch density that actually starts to approach print quality: I think it's around 250 dpi or so, so the text is noticeably better rendered than on other devices, which have densities around the upper 100s range.

I like smallish (~5-6"). I actually dislike reading large hardcover books and usually prefer paperbacks which are probably smaller than the PRS-350. Smaller books (and readers) are much easier to handle when reading on the bed while turning this way and that.

I already use an iPhone 4 as my primary reader. For $120, I figure the Sony PRS-350 would be a nice inexpensive way to start with e-ink. Most of my ebooks are in ePub format so that's already one con for the Kindle. Being able to read books borrowed from the library on the PRS-350 is also a big plus. When I played with it a bit on Sony Style (a while back), it felt quite solid to me. The Sony also wins on aesthetics. While I probably would have preferred the PRS-650, price is a bit steep at $230 for me who's just dipping her toes in e-ink technology. Really appreciate the feedback, though.

I'll be picking up my reader tomorrow. So excited now. Too bad Staples was sold out of cases (50% off).

[Latinandgreek]

I love my PRS-350. It is pretty close to what I imagine an ideal ebook reader to be for me.